Chasing Ghosts
by anthropologist
Summary: Happy endings are hard to come by. Lisbon finds herself having to compete with the memory of Jane's wife, long after Red John's death.


**Chasing Ghosts  
**

This one is for Yana (yaba). Thank you for always being so inspiring and kind, and for letting me ramble on to you about anything and everything.

I don't own The Mentalist. Lyrics by Tegan and Sara.

* * *

_No matter which way you go,  
No matter which way you stay,__  
You're out of my mind, out of my mind_.

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He loves you. He claims to know the exact minute he fell for you (1:18 in the afternoon, he always says, when you fought to incriminate the correct murderer in the Montgomery case, regardless of the fact that the AG was more than content to put an innocent man away behind bars) and although you have absolutely no way of knowing if it's the truth or not, you're inclined to believe him, as you often are. Despite the fact that you're always eager to deny it, you've had feelings for Jane for a long time, and though you may not remember the exact minute, you never doubt that it's always been more serious with him than with anyone else. In your lifetime there has only been maybe one or two men you've fallen this hard for, and you've gone through more with Jane by far. You didn't dare hope too much before, because a romance with him seemed so out of reach, but now things are different.

Red John's death comes about in a blur of hasty pandemonium. It's quick and almost anticlimactic when his heart stops beating as a courtesy of Van Pelt's gun. (The idiot rookie with looks and no skill, Red John called her, so his ending is fitting, appropriate.) Jane didn't kill him, but it's still akin to poetic justice when the serial killer dies as he looks into Jane's eyes. And then, after the coroner has taken away the body, while you're nursing a cup of coffee and Jane is drinking his tea, he says plainly, "Go out with me, Lisbon," like he always knew it would happen. And you like the idea of all-knowing Patrick Jane considering your relationship as inevitable. What strikes you most is the potential, something that seemed so impossible before is now tangible, dangling in front of you.

You date and it surprises you that for once a relationship is easy for you, that it almost feels natural. You are so caught up in the honeymoon period that it takes your usually sharp senses a while before you notice all the little warning signs that you curse yourself for overlooking earlier. He doesn't close his eyes when he kisses you, he doesn't initiate sex, he doesn't meet your eyes when he tells you he loves you, he smiles tightly when people make comments about your relationship. When you bring up moving in together, he avoids your request, and he never lets you sleep over at his place. You know there isn't another woman, since Jane spends nearly every waking moment with you. He brings you flowers, takes you out to nice dinners, listens to you attentively when you want to talk. But you can't shake off the feeling that something isn't really right, that he isn't happy. And if he's not completely happy, you can't be, either. You ignore your misgivings for the time being; he's Jane, he's supposed to be weird and annoyingly difficult to read. He loves you. You both just need time to adjust, to get used to each other as a couple. You shouldn't have brought up moving in, that wasn't like you, it's way too soon for that and you were wrong to jump with both eyes closed. You chide yourself and you neatly put away the discomforting thought in your pile of Things Not to Think About.

When you finally sleep together for the first time, it's not anything like what you expected. There is little passion, and he doesn't even come. It's all very quick, there isn't much foreplay, and although you are naked, Jane is still wearing his shirt. But he holds you afterwards, and when you cry softly, turning your face away from him in embarrassment, he strokes your hair until you fall asleep.

You wake up to quiet, agonized whispers, so broken that you begin to feel the cracks in your own heart. "Amie, I'm so sorry," Jane is murmuring. The sound claws at you, leaving behind scratches on your delicate skin. "I'm so very sorry, I never wanted to hurt you this way. Please forgive me, Amie, please understand..."

You feel like the world's biggest idiot for not putting two and two together earlier. _His wife_. The one thing he never talked about. You've known Jane for years and you never even knew her name until now. Once in a while he talks to you about his daughter, his previous life as a psychic, his childhood. But never about his wife. You should have known turning over a new leaf was too much to ask. Such a wound can't heal itself, and it was stupid of you to think that it would just fade like magic with the serial killer's demise.

For the next few weeks, you give yourself space from Jane. You decline his dinner and movie invitations in favor of paperwork and tequila, you pull away when he tries to hold you close, you offer your cheek instead of your lips when he leans in. You notice the sprinkling of mild surprise in his eyes when you do so, and the cautious nod and look of appraisal when you cancel and beg off on yet another date. But mostly you notice how he doesn't even really try to change anything, how he just seems apologetic instead of confused. So you hurt in silence as you wonder why you feel a sense of loss when Jane has not gone anywhere.

He brings you coffee at work, places the cup on your desk like a peace offering. He waits patiently for you to acknowledge his presence and you do, because you learned long ago that ignoring Jane pains you more than it pains him. His facial features are contorted, as if he is suffering. "I'm trying. I'm trying to love you. Please believe me. Please believe that I would want nothing more than to make you happy," he declares without preamble as you take a sip of the coffee. His words cause your favorite drink to taste bitterer than it actually is, but you don't feel much at his words. There is no sympathy, no ache, no relief, just a slight hum of something that reminds you an awful lot of disappointment. Jane is a good liar. If he had said the right words, you would have believed him. You wish you knew why he didn't even make the effort to lie, for your sake. And you're angry because this knowledge stings so sharply: It's not that he loves you after all, he just _wants_ to love you, but now you're not sure if that is good enough.

You stop avoiding him after his confession, but you don't talk about it anymore either. You go to dinner with him again, you order the chicken dish that he raves about, and you share a slice of cheesecake. You watch a movie on the couch and correct all the errors. You lay awake for hours as he begs his dead wife for forgiveness he won't ever receive and listen to the pretty words he won't ever say to you while meaning them. And, in your very own bed, when he calls for Amie to come back, you do the both of you a favor. "I'm right here, Patrick. It's okay."

"Amie. Please don't leave me again. I'm very sorry. I love you, Amie. I love you so much it feels like I'm dying."

"I won't. I won't leave. I'm right here, I promise."

He wakes up at half past four, his forehead beaded with sweat and his breathing coming out in heavy, strained gasps. You don't say anything, don't reach for him as he takes in his bearings and gazes at you like he is seeing a ghost instead. "I dream about my wife," he whispers, saying the words like he is giving up a part of himself. And maybe he is, maybe he would be, if he hadn't already taken a part of you to fill his own emptiness.

You swallow. You don't have the heart to tell him. You don't _want_ to tell him. If you do, it'll almost be like admitting something you're not even ready to think about. You have his body but you won't ever have his heart."It's okay," you say, even though it's anything but, even though it's ripping you apart on the inside.

"I'm sorry," he tells you, honesty ringing in every syllable. "Don't leave," he says quietly. He's finally saying it to _you_, asking for loyalty and commitment from you, but it doesn't feel good like you thought it would. You just feel sad, because once again you've managed to fall for a man you don't really have and don't know how to earn.

"Okay," you say gently. Suddenly he breaks, leaning closer so that he can bury his head in the crook of your neck, and you feel his tears tickle the side of your neck. "Okay," you say again, at a loss for words. His arm moves to wrap itself around your body and, because he seems to take comfort from your voice, you repeat yourself until you're both convinced he understands. "Okay." He kisses you hard, his tongue melding with yours in a vulnerable kind of fury that he hasn't yet shown you. "Okay." His lips move along the side of your neck. You moan, the noise too loud in the heavy room. "Okay." Hands fumble under your shirt, delicately outlining the shape of the bra you forgot to discard before you went to sleep. You begin to lose track of time, of your senses, as he swiftly unfastens your bra and moves his lips lower over the contours of your body.

"You're thinking too loud," Jane groans into your inner thigh. You allow your eyes to slip shut, and by the time he enters you, you can't even bring yourself to say anything more than his name and a breathy expletive.

He comes this time and so do you, and you're entangled in his arms again by the time he drifts off to sleep. You don't feel complete, you don't feel real, you don't feel solid. You wonder when you became the insomniac in the relationship, and that leads you to wonder when you stopped having the capacity to feel much of anything at all.

As you stare at the familiar ceiling, you remember the time you broke your arm when you were a little girl. It hurt like a bitch, and you cried and cried as your mother looked at it, as she drove you to the ER, as the unfriendly-looking doctor put on your cast. It ached for a long time and, caught up in characteristic child-like angst, you whined to your mother that you wished it didn't hurt. Your mother bent down so that she was at eye level with you and told you that you were lucky, because some people didn't have arms at all. Yours was broken, but it would be fixed. It would heal. You were lucky.

You tell yourself the same thing now, and you hope that you start to believe it again.

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Author's Note: Thank you for reading. Please review :)


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